by Kathi Daley
“We have. As recently as last night, in fact. What we didn’t talk about was a plan the two of you hatched to sneak onto the island behind Sam’s back.”
I took a sip of my coffee. “I take it you’re against the idea.”
“I think it sounds dangerous. Why not fill Sam in on your plan? Why all the secrecy?”
“Like I told you,” Quinn said, “Sam is the sheriff, and therefore he’s bound by the law and certain limitations and procedures when it comes to gathering information. If he ventures outside those limitations and procedures, then anything he might stumble across which could prove that Wilson Montgomery has been holding girls against their will for the past quarter of a century, will be inadmissible in court.”
“He needs to go through channels,” I added. “We don’t. The only way he’s going to get access to the island is if he finds enough evidence to convince a judge to issue a warrant. At this point, all any of us have is a hunch, and given Gavin Montgomery’s wealth and political clout, I don’t think a hunch is going to do it.”
“You might get caught,” Carrie pointed out.
“We might,” Quinn agreed. “But I’ve done time behind bars in the past for being where I wasn’t supposed to be. I have connections, and I always find my way out of any mess I get myself into.”
“What if you aren’t arrested?” Carrie asked. “What if you’re shot by Montgomery’s security staff? Do you have connections that can bring you back from the dead?”
I could see that Carrie was getting upset, and that was not the way to get her cooperation. I jumped in. “We aren’t saying we are definitely doing anything,” I pointed out. “We’re just talking about it. Not only do we want to find out what happened to Peggy, but even more importantly, we want to find Grace. She’s just a kid. If she is being held somewhere against her will, she must be terrified.”
I could see that Carrie’s resistance had begun to waver.
“We have good reason to believe that Wilson is involved,” I continued. “We know he was at the surfing competition this past weekend. We all saw him there. We also all saw him talking to Grace. Granted, we witnessed him speak to other surfers as well, but Grace is the one who won the competition, so she was the one to draw the most attention.”
“And she fits the profile,” Quinn reminded her.
“And she fits the profile,” I seconded. “Lizzy told Sam that Grace had been offered a sponsorship if she wanted to go pro. She told us that she and Grace fought about this before Grace went off to her party. The situation obviously upset Grace. What if the sponsorship was actually offered by Wilson as a way to get Grace to meet with him in private? What if he used that offer to lure her onto his boat? What if, once she was on the boat, he tied her up or locked her in one of the rooms or maybe had one of his crew watch her while he disposed of her car?”
“Or maybe he paid someone to dispose of her car,” Quinn said, offering a more viable option.
“Montgomery Island is a fortress,” I added. “There’s no way on unless you’re invited, and once on the island, I’ve heard that you need permission to leave. If Wilson has been using his money to talk these girls into meeting with him, once he got them on the island, they’d have no way to leave unless he allowed them to.”
Carrie didn’t respond, but I could see she was listening.
“Veronica Smith disappeared after the finals of the same surfing competition Grace disappeared from. Five years before that, the girl we know as Cherry disappeared after winning the exact same competition,” I reminded Carrie. “I don’t know if Hillary Denton entered the competition, but I do remember someone saying that she surfed. And I have no idea if Gina Baldwin even surfed, or if either girl knew Wilson. What I do know is that Peggy knew Wilson and that she went to a concert with him just eight days before she disappeared.”
“Peggy wasn’t much of a surfer,” Carrie pointed out.
“That’s true. If the competition is the link, I suppose I’d have been the target and not Peggy since I won the dang thing.”
“Maybe you were the target,” Quinn pointed out. “You have blond hair, blue eyes, and a petite frame. You fit the profile perfectly.”
“You were even offered a sponsorship,” Carrie reminded me.
“Yeah, but not by Wilson or his father. The sponsorship was offered by someone from the Optimal Wave group.”
“Maybe you were Wilson’s choice, and it actually was Wilson who funded the sponsorship, but you didn’t choose to play the game and meet up with him later, so he took Peggy instead,” Carrie suggested. “She had blond hair and blue eyes too, so maybe she made an acceptable substitute.”
“Did the man you spoke to about the sponsorship ask you to meet him alone?” Carrie asked.
“Sort of,” I admitted. “He made the offer, but I told him I would need to talk to my parents. He told me that he would be at the marina until the following morning, and if I decided to take him up on his offer, I could find him there. I went home and talked to my parents, who put an end to my dreams before they even got started. I probably knew they were right on some level, so I went to the party, and that was the end of it. I never saw the guy who made the offer again.”
“Wilson was following us around all weekend,” Quinn reminded me. “Maybe he’d targeted you, but hadn’t figured it all out yet if that was his first kidnapping. Maybe he had been dating Peggy to get close to you, so when she showed up, assuming that’s even what happened, he simply took her instead of you.”
Talk about a lot to digest. What if Peggy had been taken as some sort of substitute for me? I wasn’t sure how I’d live with that if that was what had occurred.
“At this point, we can’t prove any of this,” Quinn said. “We need to get on that island and look around.” She looked at Carrie. “Will you help us?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll help. What do you want me to do?”
Chapter 3
I was surprised to see how much Carrie had accomplished since I’d last visited the condo. The kitchen was mostly set up, as was the patio. One of the suites was filled with boxes and furniture from Jessica’s bedroom, while the guest room had been set up using Carrie’s bedroom set from the old house. Carrie explained that she was having a new bedroom set for the master delivered today, as well as a new sofa and love seat, matching coffee and end tables, a dining table and chairs, and an entry table that she assured me was going to look spectacular and fit perfectly.
“The place is really coming along,” I said after poking my head into all the rooms.
“I’ve been working hard to get it livable as soon as possible,” Carrie admitted. “I really can’t face going back to the house where I lived with Carl all those years. I want to have the move complete before the summerhouse rental is up, and you all go home.”
“Well, I think you’ve made great strides in that direction,” I said.
“Do you know what time the men from the furniture store will be here with your new stuff?” Quinn asked.
“I estimate between noon and three,” Carrie answered. “If they came over on the early ferry, it will be closer to noon, but if they took a later ferry, it will be later in the afternoon. They said they’d text once they had a better time estimate.”
“I love how the corner window opens up the room,” I said. “Not only do you look directly out toward the water and beach through the front window, but the side window in the corner gives you a panorama. Did you ever decide between blinds and drapes?”
“Blinds,” Carrie answered. “You made a good point when you said that drapes would obstruct the view.”
“Do you have the blinds on order?” I asked.
She nodded. “Nora and I ordered some the day we went shopping.”
“Speaking of Nora, I wonder how things are going,” Quinn said. “I know she’s only been gone one day, but the situation seems like the sort of thing that might either go really well or really poorly.”
“I’m sure things will go a lit
tle of each way before all is said and done, but I have faith it will all work out in the end,” Carrie answered. She glanced out the window. “It looks like Sam is here. Were either of you expecting him to stop by?”
“No,” I said.
“I did text him to let him know what we planned to do this afternoon, so he knew we’d be here, but he never mentioned stopping by,” Quinn added.
Carrie went to the door and opened it before Sam had a chance to knock. “Come in,” she said. “I’m glad you stopped by. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to show you my new place.”
He entered the room. “It’s very nice.” He looked around a bit. “A perfect location. But I’m afraid I’m not here socially.”
Carrie frowned. “What is it? Not Ryder?”
“Ryder is fine,” Sam assured her.
“Jessica?”
“Jessica is fine as well,” Sam answered. “The reason I’m here has to do with Grace Johnson.”
“Did you find her?” I jumped in.
“No, but we did find her cell phone in her car, and we were able to trace the last call she made before the phone was turned off.”
“Who’d she call?” I asked.
Sam looked directly at Carrie. “She called Carl.”
She gasped, clutching her chest as she did so. “My Carl?”
He nodded.
“Why on earth would Lizzy’s daughter, Grace, call Carl? I doubt they even know each other.”
Sam answered. “I’m not sure, but I am interested in asking Carl that exact question. The problem is that he’s not picking up his phone and he’s not home. I went to his office, and his receptionist told me that she hadn’t seen him since Friday. Carl keeps his own schedule, so she didn’t know where he might be, but she did say that as far as she knew, he hadn’t planned to come in this week.”
“When you say Grace called Carl, did she call his office, his home, or his personal cell?” Quinn asked.
“Personal cell. Of course, his cell number is on ads all over town, so it wouldn’t have been hard to get. It looks like the call occurred after Grace left the party on Saturday night.” Sam tightened his lips. “Do you have any idea where Carl might be, or how I might be able to get ahold of him?”
Carrie slowly shook her head. The poor thing looked shell shocked. “I have no idea. Have you spoken to Miranda?”
Miranda was the woman Carl had left Carrie for. The woman Carl now lived with and would most likely marry.
“She wasn’t at the house when I went by, and her phone went straight to voice mail when I called. I’ll keep trying. If for some reason you hear from Carl, I need you to ask him to call me,” Sam said.
She lowered her head. “Yeah. I will. And if you hear from him, will you let me know? I’m sure everything is fine, but I still can’t help but worry.”
Sam nodded. “I wouldn’t worry too much at this point, but I will call and let you know if I manage to track him down.”
“Is there any other news in the Grace Johnson missing persons case?” I asked Sam while I had his attention.
Sam hesitated and then answered. “The crime scene guys were unable to find fingerprints inside Grace’s car that didn’t belong to either Grace, her friends, or her family. There wasn’t any blood, which is good, nor was there any physical evidence to point us in a direction. We have the phone, but it didn’t tell us much. There were calls to friends earlier in the day, which I’ve been able to confirm, a call to the bowling alley, and then the call to Carl.”
“And you didn’t find anything that would tell you how the car ended up where it did?” I asked.
“No. We really have no idea why the car was left there. We’re following up on a few leads.”
“Hopefully, those will pan out,” Quinn said.
“Hopefully,” Sam agreed. “I did make progress in a parallel case.”
“Parallel case?” Quinn asked.
“I finally managed to track down the girl Denver knew as Cherry.”
“Track her down?” I asked. “Is she alive?”
He nodded. “Cherry is now going by another name. She’s alive and well and living in Hawaii.”
“You spoke to her?” I asked.
He nodded. “Apparently, she left Shipwreck Island of her own free will ten years ago.”
“So, she wasn’t kidnapped?” I clarified.
He shook his head. “After she won the surfing competition, she headed to Huntington Beach as she told Denver she’d planned to do. When she arrived, she ran into a guy she’d met in the past, and they ended up making a connection of the romantic kind. He was headed to Hawaii, so she followed him and has been living there ever since.”
“So, if nothing happened to her, why didn’t she show up for her date with Denver?” Carrie asked.
“Actually, I did ask her that, and she said the kid was much too intense and felt like it was better to bail without a big tearful goodbye. Tearful on his part, not on hers,” he emphasized.
I had to admit that there was a part of me that really didn’t blame her. Denver did tend to be the sort to wear his heart on his sleeve when it came to those he cared about. “So if Cherry simply left the island after the surf competition, then she isn’t part of the pattern, which means we still don’t have a girl for two thousand and ten,” I pointed out.
“That looks to be the case.” Sam looked at his watch. “I really need to go. If you hear from Carl, please call me.”
“I will,” Carrie promised.
“Call me later,” Quinn called after Sam. “When you have time to talk.”
His expression relaxed, and he sent her the sweetest smile. “I will. Maybe we can even get together later for dinner or a drink or something.”
“I’d like that.” She smiled back.
After Sam left, the three of us settled onto the deck with tall glasses of iced tea. We still needed to wait for the furniture delivery team, but somehow the idea of emptying boxes while we waited no longer had the appeal it once had. I could see that Carrie was really upset about the situation with Carl. Not that I blamed her. He might be a pig in men’s clothing, but he was still the man she’d spent the majority of her life married to.
“So I heard from my friend with Naval Intelligence,” Quinn said, I suspected more as a way to initiate a conversation not involving Carl than anything else. “He warned me that the island’s perimeter is protected by a laser type security system.”
“So even if we’re able to land on the island from the backside, we may not be able to make it past the beach,” I said.
“Basically, yeah,” Quinn responded. “I chatted with my friend, and he did some additional research. Apparently, if we approach at high tide, there is a way to swim beneath the laser fence as long as we approach the island in one specific location. I checked the tide tables, and we do have a couple of opportunities this week. We still need to pick a night when it’s extra dark, so ideally, we’ll be looking for a foggy or overcast night where the high tide arrives at some point between ten p.m. and four a.m.”
“Is there such a night?” Carrie asked.
“Actually,” Quinn answered, “if the fog cooperates, we are good to go tomorrow night. High tide is at eleven-fourteen. That should give us time to sneak under the laser fence, take a quick look around, and then swim back out under the fence before the tide starts to go out.”
“And is there supposed to be fog all night?” Carrie asked.
“Actually, tomorrow’s marine forecast is calling for fog between eight p.m. and four a.m. It should clear by sunrise, but if we’re lucky, we should have both the tide and the fog cover we need.”
“Are you sure there aren’t other security measures in place once you sneak in under the fence?” Carrie asked.
“Honestly?” Quinn answered. “I’m not sure. There’s no way to really be sure, but at this point, it seems all we can do is head out to the island and see what we find. We won’t have long on the island. Maybe half an hour tops if we wan
t to be safe. We might be able to squeeze out a few more minutes, but if we wait too long and the tide rolls out too far, we’ll be trapped until the next high tide.”
“It seems pretty risky,” Carrie said.
I pursed my lips as I went over the plan in my head. “I don’t disagree that it sounds like a risky plan, but I think taking a look around seems to be our best bet of figuring out if Grace is being held there.” I glanced at Quinn. “Thirty minutes isn’t a lot of time. The island is much too large to explore without at least four times that amount of time.”
“I’m aware of that,” Quinn answered. “My plan at this point is to access the island and get a general layout of the place. Hopefully, we will be able to ascertain what sort of security we’ll need to deal with in the future.”
“Future?” Carrie asked.
“My plan is to use tomorrow as a recon mission, which will provide the information we need to sneak back on and stay longer.”
“Stay longer?” Carrie’s voice rose an octave.
“If we can find a place to hide, then maybe we can sneak onto the island, take a look around, then wait for the next high tide to sneak away,” Quinn said.
“Chances are we’d have to be on the island close to twenty-four hours in order to have two high tides under the cover of darkness,” I pointed out. “At least at this time of the year when the nights are short.”
“Yeah,” Quinn sighed. “I did think of that. And I realize that we may have to wait quite a while for the tides and weather to team up in our favor again. But it still seems like a reasonable plan to me to head out tomorrow night and at least check it out if the fog does indeed roll in.”
“I’m in,” I said.
Carrie blew out a slow breath. “Yeah, okay, I’m in as well. I’ll call down to the marina and see about renting a boat. Carl got ours in the divorce settlement.”
“Okay, great,” Quinn leaned back in her chair with a look of satisfaction on her face. I was scared half out of my mind, but she looked like the cat who’d managed to tip over the carton of cream.
